A digital self portait in bright neon colors of my looking forlorn amidst a wirling chaos. The neon portrait is in the upper center and beneath it is its dark relfction.

Happy (Gregorian Calendar) New Year. I started 2022 feeling confident & grounded. I took space & time to co-create with my self & with John. And we also cleaned up the house, made good food, and watched some shitty movies too. All in all the transition from 2021 to 2022 was delightful.

Then, Monday dawned, and with it came an impending dread. Like the whole damn world’s lost its mind, and the ones in power just want us subjugated, trapped, and disconnected. And it was a feeling I couldn’t shake even while spending quality time with comrades like Crystal Mason of Queering Dream and Lisa Burger and Jericha Senyak with Dandelion Arts Finance Training Program and Megan Wilson with Clarion Alley Mural Project.

In between each of these meetings, I napped or stared at a wall. For the brief bits of presence, I became overwhelmed from the sheer volume of decision-making required of each of us as we chart our way through yet another (predictable) surge of COVID. It is both overstimulating and depressing.

So when I woke up Tuesday morning, I needed something both familiar & distant to help ground me a bit, to help me shift my perspective, to stave off early morning spiralling. I decided to return to self portraiture and picked up my pencil and iPad. I snapped a selfie around 4:20am and got to work. It took about three hours to draw, which was three hours of not thinking too hard, of letting my hand make gesture, of letting go.

It's a good reminder that sometimes a remedy to my approaching listlessness is to let my hand go wander. It's a way to quiet the mind and ease my anxiety.

 

A digital self portait in bright neon colors of my looking forlorn amidst a wirling chaos. The neon portrait is in the upper center and beneath it is its dark relfction.

 

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